One dog’s search for courage and another dog’s search for fun.

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Training update for Rue 4/14/09

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to sit down and update my blog. Lots has happened in the past week, though, that I’d like to share. First off, she’s doing great with her board training. I’ve done three sessions with the board on two 2×4’s and she’s averaged a little better than 90%. I need to do another session or two at this height to make sure we’re staying consistent and then raise it again. Here’s her latest videos from 4/10 and 4/12:

We’ve also been working on her teeter and have had two great sessions, one at home and one at PBH. I’d like to see her driving to the end more and hopefully even sliding to a stop before starting to drop it much again. I may drop it a few inches, but still lower the end myself until I’m seeing that drive. Her recent sessions:

I also did some work with my home chute. She’s been through the chute at PBH a handful of times, but has only used mine at home once before. I videoed this session and I can see that her head is way too high and she actually gets caught the first time through. Thank goodness she’s so resilient because she had no qualms about going back in there. We worked on this in class last night as well and I think I need to start throwing some food or a toy out for her so she gets used to exiting with her head low. But she was awesome in class and even handled rear crosses into the chute with ease 🙂 Here’s the video from our home session:

Overall, Rue is doing really really well. I’ve seen a remarkable turn around in her attitude and desire to work with me both at home and in class. I can’t remember the last time she left me to go visit with another dog or to eat grass or any of the things that she used to find more rewarding than me, yay! We’re continuing to work on handling using jump standards and tunnels as well as around the clock one jump work without a bar and with the tire. I’m still working on getting more drive onto the table as well as fast downs and fast releases from it. She has mastered the “down while moving” where I’ll say down and continue to walk or even jog forward. She also has a great start line stay with good drive to me when we work on recalls to heel. I am super pleased with the foundation I’m giving her. Next weekend Wendy Pape is coming to PBH to give a seminar. I’m taking a private lesson with both dogs and also working Rue in her “Motivational Play” seminar while Miles will be working in the “Masters Handling” group. Yippee!!